Attention

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Tens of thousands of people marched to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial and down the National Mall on Saturday, commemorating the 50th anniversary of King's famous speech and pledging that his dream includes equality for gays, Latinos, the poor and the disabled.

The event was an homage to a generation of activists that endured fire hoses, police abuse and indignities to demand equality for African Americans. But there was a strong theme of unfinished business.

"This is not the time for nostalgic commemoration," said Martin Luther King III, the oldest son of the slain civil rights leader. "Nor is this the time for self-congratulatory celebration. The task is not done. The journey is not complete. We can and we must do more."More

Based on a statement Wednesday, the White House does not see the need to make a distinction between someone who says he killed an individual in self-defense because the individual was beating his head into a sidewalk, and someone who, according to police, allegedly killed another individual out of boredom by shooting him in the back. The first victim was Trayvon Martin, and the second was Australian baseball player Christopher Lane, about whom White House Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Obama’s comments after the Trayvon Martin case should apply.

“This sounds like a pretty tragic case. [T]he president I think himself has spoken pretty eloquently about violence, He expressed his concern about the impact of violence in communities across the country.” White House Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest, said according to the Washington Examiner, adding that Obama’s comments after the Trayvon Martin case apply to Lane.

Users of the community driven news website Reddit flooded a homeless shelter in Oklahoma with donations on Friday, after a user’s post highlighting the kindness of a homeless man who reportedly stays there went viral.

“This homeless man found a bunch of my wife’s stolen property strewn all over downtown Tulsa,” read a now viral Reddit post. “He took the time to gather it all up in the rain and call us for retrieval. I just want to recognize him as an awesome human being.”More

Hillary Clinton is set to rake in another $200,000 in speaking fees by addressing Carlyle Group (CG) investors next month, according to a published report.

The speech represents the former secretary of state’s second lucrative appearance in front of a private-equity audience, including an event in June with investors from KKR (KKR).

According to Politico, Clinton’s speech in front of Carlyle Group shareholders will take place at the firm’s Sept. 9 investor conference in Washington. The event will be moderated by billionaire and Carlyle founder David Rubenstein, who is a Democrat.

The vehicles, which share the same platform and components, received the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's five-star Overall Vehicle Score for safety.

The rating, the highest possible score, marks the first time any pickups have achieved that feat since the regulatory agaency updated its New Car Assessment Program for the 2011 model year. The Ford F-150 and Ram 1500 pickups both received four-star ratings.

Officials of the State Health Department announced Friday that three West Nile Virus cases in Maryland have been confirmed.

Health officials say these are the first confirmed cases of the virus in the state this year.

“This is the time of year we see West Nile virus cases in Maryland," DHMH Secretary Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein said. "Our first confirmed cases of the season should serve as a reminder for all Maryland residents to take the basic steps that can reduce the risk of getting infected."More

In its announcement, President Obama's healthcare plan is specifically mentioned by UVa as a reason for the rising costs that forced the university to drop working spouses. ObamaCare is expected to add $7 million to the university's health care costs.

Concerned about the negative impact an emergency proposal to limit the use of chicken manure on farms could have, the Worcester County Commissioners will send a letter of protest to state officials.

“Why is it an emergency?” asked Commissioner Virgil Shockley during Tuesday’s meeting of the county commissioners. “It was not supposed to be implemented until 2016.”

The new regulations, proposed by the Department of Agriculture, would penalize farmers and he asked the commissioners to act immediately by writing to officials in advance of the Aug. 28 public hearing being held by the Maryland General Assembly’s Joint Committee on Administrative, Executive and Legislative Review at 2:30 p.m. in the Joint Hearing Room in the Legislative Services Building in Annapolis.More

On Tuesday, September 10th, Tea Party Patriots will partner with numerous other pro-liberty groups to participate in the Exempt America Rally on the West Lawn of the US Capitol in Washington, DC at 12pm. This rally is taking place to demand that Congress delay the implementation of Obamacare by refusing to stop spending money on the law.

The Obama administration has already unilaterally delayed the implementation of the law for Big Business. The IRS union - who is charged with enforcing the law - doesn’t want it, the Teamsters say it will destroy the 40 hour work week, and now Members of Congress and their Staffs have received special protection from the law. If this law isn’t good enough for Big Business, Big Labor, or Big Government, then it isn’t good enough for the American people. We must take this opportunity to demonstrate to Washington that American people should be Exempt from Obamacare.

The looming budget fight may be our last chance to stop Obamacare before the January 1st deadline. We will need as large a turnout in Washington as possible. We must show Congress, on their first day back from their summer recess, that they cannot run to DC to hide from the American voters.

There are many members of Congress that are too afraid to take an actual stand against the oncoming “Train Wreck”. We need to show them that we, the American people, will not let this go without a fight.

Please RSVP to wctppatriots@gmail.com with name, email and contact phone number so we can determine level of interest to determine if we should secure a bus.

ATHENS, Ohio (AP) -- The mother of an autistic first-grader in Ohio who uses a service dog is challenging a decision that the girl must change schools because her special-education teacher is allergic to dog dander.

Charla Gretz said a school official told her on the first day of school this week that her daughter, 6-year-old Shyanna, and her black Labrador retriever, Spring, could not attend Morrison-Gordon Elementary School in southeast Ohio, The Columbus Dispatch reported (http://bit.ly/16UnXhM ). The official told her that the special-education teacher at the school is extremely allergic to dog dander and Shyanna must transfer, according to Gretz.

Shyanna gets overwhelmed by sensory issues and does not cope well with change, Gretz said. Her dog is trained to calm her and to walk on an attached tether so the girl cannot wander. Gretz said changing schools would disturb her daughter.More

Despite all of the conflicting evidence and political antagonism over the resort’s tourism performance this summer, the simplest explanation may be the one offered by the Democratic political strategist James Carville during President Bill Clinton’s first run: “The economy, stupid.”

Regardless of any problems specific to Ocean City, East Coast resorts are reportedly having universal difficulty this year. The latest edition of the Smith Travel Report, which aggregates booking data from a network of franchise hotels, shows the Jersey Shore’s occupancy rate down 10.2 percent and Atlantic City down a whopping 20.4 percent.

Ocean City has seen a comparatively minor drop of three percent for June, as have the Delaware resorts and Virginia Beach.More

On Fox News Channel’s “On the Record with Greta van Susteren” on Wednesday, conservative columnist Pat Buchanan weighed in on the murder of Australian baseball player Chris Lane who was allegedly shot and killed last week by three “bored” teenagers.

Buchanan said the culture was to blame for the apparent amorality of the alleged murderers.

“It’s not only evil — there’s a sense here of amorality,” Buchanan said. “No sense that anything of real preciousness and value is involved. It’s let’s get our kicks for a couple of minutes by shooting a man to death. And I think it raises a question: Where do these kids come out? Where do they come from to get the idea that this was sort of a fine thing, a good thing to do and a lot of fun? I think if you take a look at the culture — I think we got to take a look at the culture that they grew up in. Look at the — kids when I grew up, you never heard of anything like this. Kid got in fights and there were problems and things like that.”

An unlucky California skateboarder found out the hard way that some mothers react very aggressively when they see their children get hurt, even if it is by accident.

While shooting a segment for a skateboarding mixtape series earlier this month at a local skatepark in California, professional skateboarder Leland Goldberg did not notice that a child was on the loose.

Goldberg ended up accidentally smashing into the young child, knocking him flat on his back.More

The internal party struggle over filling the Senate seat vacated by Sen. E.J. Pipkin in District 36 on the Upper Shore remains in flux as freshman Del. Steve Hershey of Queen Anne’s County secured the official vote of the Kent County Republican Central Committee on Thursday.

This reversed a Tuesday vote that went to Audrey Scott, the 77-year-old Queenstown resident and former Republican State Party Chair, who some people involved in the process claim has been the choice of U.S. Rep. Andy Harris.

UPDATED: Harris put out a strong statement Friday afternoon denying he was supporting anyone in the race.More

The association of young black men with violence doesn't come out of thin air

Australian Christopher Lane was killed on Monday in Oklahoma by three teens, one of whom has said they were just “bored.” The right is complaining that the media is making nothing of the fact that two of the teens were black whereas Lane was white, as opposed to the massive alarm sounded in cases such as white (or white-ish) George Zimmerman killing black Trayvon Martin. And again the cry was heard that there is more “black-on-black” or “black-on-white” crime than “white-on-black,” and that young black men are in fact more of a problem than people like Zimmerman.

In a few short weeks, kids all over the country will be starting their first year of high school. These kids were by and large born in 1999, so it’s safe to assume that their high school experience will be different than yours. Here’s how… 1. They have never lived in a world with monthly texting limits.

2. Or in a world where they’ve had to look up directions and print them out.

The Obama administration’s Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is under fire after announcing a proposed executive decree to make American neighborhoods more “diverse.” Under the new HUD policy, dubbed “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing,” the federal government will gather and track data on “segregation” and “discrimination” across America before deploying a wide range of social-engineering schemes to ensure more “diversity” in U.S. neighborhoods. Some analysts say there is an even broader agenda at work.

While details about the latest anti-constitutional plot remain scarce, news reports and official documents suggest the administration will use a combination of federal bribes and coercion to achieve its aims. The goal, in essence, is to force state and local governments into submission using a “carrot and stick” approach. Among the many federal targets in enforcing centrally planned diversity: local zoning regulations, public transportation, land-use policies, government housing agencies, and more.

BERLIN — Providing clear evidence of an ongoing, summer-long rabies problem in northern Worcester County, an aggressive raccoon shot and killed by Berlin Police Chief Arnold Downing in a residential backyard on Burley Street on Tuesday morning has tested positive for the disease.Police began tracking the aggressive raccoon early Tuesday morning in the area of Worcester Preparatory School and followed the animal throughout much of the morning before Downing ultimately shot and killed it in a backyard on Burley Street around 11 a.m. Downing said the raccoon had traveled a great distance through areas heavily populated with residents, including children, and pets.More

Bette Midler wouldn't normally be expected to trumpet her opinion on who should be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve.

This time is different.

A battle over what's arguably the world's most powerful economic post has turned into an unusually public struggle over two renowned economists — Fed Vice Chair Janet Yellen and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers.

The Maryland Department of Agriculture’s proposed “emergency” regulation on phosphorus applications to farmland will be the subject of a Maryland General Assembly committee review on Wednesday, August 28 in Annapolis.

Delmarva Poultry Industry, Inc. and other agricultural groups are urging all persons connected to the Maryland chicken industry, whether they are growers, chicken company employees, suppliers, crop farmers, and others to offer their comments to the legislative committee about the harm this proposed “emergency” regulation could have on the agricultural community throughout the state. (Like you, we also are wondering what the “emergency” nature of this proposal is.) The message we would like to you to send to committee members is that they need to stop the “emergency” status of the regulation and allow the Maryland Department of Agriculture to move forward with its plan following the regular process of creating new state regulations. The regular process will allow time for more public comments and an opportunity to present more information on the implementation of a phased-in phosphorus management system that would be less harmful than the immediate implementation of the emergency regulation.

This proposed “emergency” regulation, if not stopped by the legislative committee, would go into effect immediately. It is expected to have a severe negative impact on the use of poultry manure in Somerset, Wicomico and Worcester counties. In fact, all counties in Maryland will be impacted. There has been no economic study to show the effects of this proposed regulation. We believe the impact will be huge.

There are serious concerns being raised about this proposed regulation by manure transporters who may have fewer farmers willing to accept chicken manure; chicken growers who may have no place to send their manure, thus creating problems on chicken farms; crop farmers who will have extra costs to fertilize their fields since they will be denied the ability to use manure; and chicken companies who may have to reduce bird placements on some farms because of those farms' inability to clean out their houses in accordance with company recommendations.

Here is a brief summary of how this “emergency” regulation, put into effect immediately, could impact chicken growers, chicken companies, and crop farmers.

· Many Maryland farmers will not be able to use animal manure as a fertilizer.

· Many chicken growers will not be able to cake out or clean out their chicken houses because there will be no places to use this locally produce organic fertilizer.

· Poultry litter storage buildings will not be large enough to hold the manure that cannot be used elsewhere.

· With limits on manure transport money, moving the manure to other areas will be difficult if not impossible.

· Companies that transport manure will not be able to take it because there will be no place to deliver it.

· Total chicken house cleanouts could become impossible.

· If chicken houses are not cleaned out on a regular basis, chicken companies might not place new flocks into the houses, thus depriving farm families of income.

· Chicken companies unable to raise new birds will become less competitive.

· Crop farmers accustomed to using chicken manure will be forced to switch to more expensive commercial fertilizer.

· Loss of income in the chicken industry and among crop farmers will have a huge impact on the economy throughout Maryland.

Delmarva Poultry Industry, Inc. is sponsoring a bus to the August 28, 2:30 hearing in Annapolis. Interested persons are welcome to ride to the hearing, but they must register for the bus. Only a few seats remain.

We need as many chicken growers and crop farmers as we can get to fill the hearing room to show the state legislators how serious an issue this is and how it can create huge negative implications for chicken growers and crop farmers. If you cannot attend, you can contact committee members as described below.

OCEAN CITY — Federal fisheries officials this week opened the public comment period on a series of recommendations aimed at further protecting Atlantic bluefin tuna, a stable of Ocean City’s commercial and recreational fishery.NOAA Fisheries is considering a rule change and associated draft environmental assessment aimed at reducing discards of Atlantic bluefin tuna and outlined a series of recommendations proposed that would reduce incidental by-catch by commercial long-liners targeting other species. The draft environmental impact statement also includes the ecological and socioeconomic analyses of the proposed amendment change.More